


Back To Before

by bluebeholder



Series: Writing About Video Games You Haven't Played [5]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Dark, Divergent Timelines, F/M, Fairy Tale Style, I'm Sorry, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, This Like All Other Writing Projects I Undertake Was A Total Accident
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 00:13:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11955669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: There are many ways to tell the same story. Three times Zelda ties her fate to Ganon's. Their pasts and presents are inextricably connected: the only question is how their future will play out.





	Back To Before

**Author's Note:**

> THIS WAS AN ACCIDENT. I watched a friend play Breath of the Wild ONCE, did some reading, played some Hyrule Warriors, did some more reading, and THIS IS THE RESULT. I suppose I should have expected this...disclaimer: I know nothing more about Legend of Zelda than what I just talked about. Judge me...with mercy, please.
> 
> If you wish to avoid the referenced noncon, skip Timeline Two, that's where it happens. 
> 
> Title from the musical _Ragtime_.

_One_

 

The story starts this way:

A princess meets a thief on the road, and out of the goodness of her heart gives to him her crown.

She thinks, _I want to save him_.

Link tells her she’s an idiot.

As it turns out, Link is wrong.

 

_Two_

 

She thinks, _it’s redemption_.

To Link, she justifies it this way: “It is the _Triforce_ , and incomplete without all three parts, and if we would have it preserved then we must meet Ganon on his own terms.”

She thinks, _I want to save him_.

Link tells her she’s an idiot.

As it turns out, Link is right.

 

_Three_

 

The King of the Gerudo comes to Hyrule.

He kisses the princess’s hand and argues the case of a better life for the Gerudo to the King of Hyrule, and she is surprised by the courtliness and eloquence he displays despite his poverty.

She thinks, _I want to save him_.

Link tells her she’s an idiot.

The jury is still out on that one.

 

_One_

 

He takes the crown and with it, people whisper, her heart. Princess Zelda asks her father nightly to let her ride in the desert again. She ignores the whispers and the stares: she is a princess, and above low rumor. But she asks again and again anyway, and finally her father gives in.

She waits until Link is away, because he’ll surely insist on going with her, and her plans have no room for interference. So she rides alone, and stops to make camp only when she is well out in the sands of the Gerudo Desert. Her fire burns low and the night is cold; she wishes she had not come. The wisdom of this decision is questionable.

“Welcome back, Princess,” the thief says, stepping from the shadows with an ironic bow.

Zelda smiles.

 

_Two_

 

Zelda rides alone to confront Ganon. As expected, he spares her only some mercy: she is dragged back to his dark fortress in chains, burned and bruised. But this is her plan, and there is to be no interference, though she’s sure that Link is already on his way.

“I would not call this ‘wisdom’,” Ganon mocks.

“I am looking to the future of Hyrule, and forward thought is wisdom,” Zelda replies. “Power cannot do that alone.”

Ganon looks down at her with a wicked smile. “Truly wise words, O Princess. Power has been alone long enough—but, interestingly, I find that is no longer true.” He caresses her face with a huge clawed hand.

Zelda is afraid.

 

_Three_

 

They dance, as all must, at a ball. Zelda is poised, graceful, beautiful; she finds herself shocked again by the Gerudo’s elegance. Her head does not even reach his shoulder, but never once does she feel as if she’ll be stepped on.

“You are a fine dancer,” she compliments him, as he bows a final time.

His eyes gleam, almost as if with avarice, when he looks at her. “You are well-spoken,” he says, sardonic when these are the first words they’ve exchanged all night except for requisite pleasantries.

“Sit by me at dinner,” Zelda challenges, “and you shall see how well I speak.”

And King Ganondorf displaces the Hero of Time at Princess Zelda’s side, if only for one evening.

 

_One_

Zelda goes back again, and again. Ganondorf—for that is his name, the thief—almost seems to wait for her. The pretext of their meetings is the matter of the crown: she claims to want it back, he refuses to give it and tantalizes her with promises. It’s all lies. Zelda looks for him for the sake of looking, and he never steals anything at all from her now.

He’s handsome, and cunning, and has no interest in being “saved”. He shows his prodigious strength and skill when they are attacked by a hunting Molduga on one evening, saving Zelda handily when her bow will do little against its heavy scales. Her guards catch up only to find her being carried from danger in a hero’s arms.

It is no surprise to Zelda when Ganondorf finally steals something from her in truth, taking it from her lips before she can bid him a goodbye.

She watches him vanish into the sands, fingers to her mouth, wondering if the proud thief would take treasure freely given to him if it came from her hands.

 

_Two_

 

She is the living embodiment of the goddess Hylia. She holds the Triforce of Wisdom. She is the Queen of Hyrule. These are the thoughts with which Zelda comforts herself. Now she has little else.

It is one thing to know in the abstract the kinds of things that happen to princesses chained up in towers, threatened with ravishment and worse. It is another to experience them so violently in person.

The only things that she allows herself to think are of weight on her hips, of the specific pinpricks of pain where claws meet her sides, of the demanding heat of Ganon’s mouth. She does not think of the implications of this, of anything beyond the purely physical, for if she does, she will cry.

When she does, she is surprised to find her tears gently dried away. The kindness is shocking—and it makes what happens later all the more horrifying.

This man does not want to be saved.

 

_Three_

 

Of one thing she is sure: King Ganondorf does not need to be “saved”. Still, no one knows what he wants. His presence looms, impossible to ignore. Zelda has heard, of course, the darker rumors of his person—that his sorcery has caused “accidents” already, that he has made overtures toward disgruntled lesser nobles who would work against the king—and she cannot deny the unsettled feeling with which he often leaves her.

At the same time, though, he is a gentleman in all respects, walking with her in the garden and discussing banalities of the weather and mocking the flowery poetry in vogue in Castle Town. He is no Hylian, being altogether too tall and dark and craggy, but Zelda will freely admit she finds him attractive.

She does not know what to think.

 

_One_

 

“Come to Hyrule,” Zelda invites him one night, as they hide from the desert cold in his tent.

“Why, O Princess?” Ganondorf asks her.

She flicks a lock of scarlet hair over his shoulder. “Because this is no life for a man like you.”

“No,” he agrees, “it is not. But life as a tame pet for a princess is not a life for me, either.”

Zelda studies him. She does not say it—would not ever say it—but she is in love with this man, with a Gerudo, with someone who is the furthest possible thing from someone who could be approved by the court. “I wouldn’t make you tame.”

“Oh?”

“I don’t think anyone could,” Zelda says, “and I would never even try.”

He smiles.

 

_Two_

 

“Do you not have anything better to do?” Zelda demands. She finds that righteous rage is a better recourse than anything else as she is now. For the moment, Ganon is not occupied with her body, but with study of some great grimoire full of evil secrets. “There is no purpose to this!”

“On the contrary, my lady,” Ganon says, turning to her with the grimoire in his hands. “I am taking your advice under consideration.”

Zelda glares at him. The shackles around her wrists cut into the thin skin there, rubbing it raw; she brushes away the pain. Everything hurts, anyway. “You, taking my advice?”

He sets down the book on the table and strides across the room toward her. She cannot help a flinch. “Indeed,” he says. “You know that the Triforce has three parts, and I only possess one. To achieve my dominion, I must have all three.”

“You’ll never get those.”

“On the contrary, my lady,” Ganon says, looking down at Zelda. “When I break you, and when I kill your little Hero, I will have all three parts of the Triforce. You see, I am looking to the future after all!”

He smiles.

 

_Three_

“Will you give up your quest?” Zelda asks, looking at King Ganondorf across the chessboard.

He studies her appraisingly. “Which one?”

“To make change in the Gerudo Desert,” Zelda says. “I sympathize, you know that I do, but you also know that my royal father will not see Hyrule’s resources so directed.”

The King shrugs. “I will not give up so long as I have the power to stand before your father and draw breath to argue,” he says. “And besides, there are other aims I seek to achieve.”

Zelda leans back a bit, confused. “What aims?”

But the King does not answer, merely makes his move. He captures her knight. “Your move.”

He smiles.

 

_One_

 

The court of Hyrule is scandalized when Princess Zelda greets her common thief and welcomes him with open arms.

Zelda and Ganondorf could, possibly, care less. If they tried very hard.

 

_Two_

 

She doesn’t know where Link is, or if he’s coming. Ganon seems unconcerned by this: Zelda is utterly terrified.

The longer Link waits, the closer they come to Ganon taking the second piece of the Triforce.

 

_Three_

 

King Ganondorf announces his intention to court Princess Zelda and, despite the great difference in their ages and uncertain state of the alliance between Gerudo and Hyrule, her father gives his blessing—with the caveat that, of course, she has the final say.

Zelda is unsure if this is true affection, or a darker stratagem.

 

_One_

 

Laughter often fills the quiet gardens of Hyrule Castle now, as Princess Zelda’s thief makes a mockery of the stiff elegance of court. She spoke true, when she said she would never try to tame Ganondorf: he comes and goes as he pleases, often enough going out by the gates and climbing in again at her window.

Still, no longer does he rob as a highway thief. Instead, he delves deep into the forgotten ruins of Hyrule and all the lands around, hunting for treasure which he brings back to Zelda. On one of these trips, Link follows him on a hunch that there will be trouble. Link’s sword is invaluable when they encounter a true demon. They return to Hyrule Castle together, laden with treasure.

And when Princess Zelda at once takes their hands in hers and thanks them for their bravery and heroism, the long-hidden mark of the Triforce on Ganondorf’s hand finally glows.

 

_Two_

 

Link is coming. Even from the battlements, Zelda can see the brilliant azure shine of the Master Sword as he hacks his way through Ganon’s army in the vanguard of the united armies of Hyrule and its vassal kingdoms. She watches, and she prays.

Her flowing, fluttering gown is white, a stark counterpoint to Ganon’s heavy black armor. But the golden band around her finger, inscribed with runes and sigils, is an exact match to that which Ganon wears. They are bound together now, the Triforce of Wisdom and the Triforce of Power, united at long, long last. It is exactly the outcome Zelda sought: but now control is in Ganon’s hands alone.

All that remains to cement his victory is the Triforce of Courage.

She prays that Link falls before he ever reaches the castle.

 

_Three_

 

“Tell me of the Triforce,” the King asks one day, as they ride far afield from Hyrule Castle.

“It is power, wisdom, and courage in equal measure,” Zelda replies, as she was taught. “Only one who has all three virtues balanced in their heart may use it, and if they do then they may have whatever their heart desires. Never, in the whole history of Hyrule, has there been such a person. And therefore never has the Triforce been used.”

Ganondorf’s expression is thoughtful. He reins in his great black charger, and Zelda follows suit on her milk-white mare. “And what if the user has only one of those virtues in excess?”

“Then the Triforce will shatter,” Zelda replies.

“And this is the power of Hyrule.”

Zelda inclines her head, suddenly wary. “Yes. What do you seek with it?”

“Fear not, my Princess,” Gandondorf says, smiling at her. “It is only curiosity. I ride beside the greatest treasure of Hyrule, or have you forgotten?”

She cannot help but smile back, for the compliment strikes true. Yet she is not blind, and in the days to come Zelda listens and watches. Even as his overtures become stronger, as they draw nearer to the appointed moment for a real proposal, Ganondorf seeks to know ever more of the Triforce. Zelda is not sure which is real: his apparent adoration of her, or his desire for power.

Both might be true.

 

_One_

 

“The Triforce of Power,” Zelda whispers in shock. Link stares with wide eyes.

“What is that?” Ganondorf asks.

“The third part of the Triforce, that which keeps Hyrule in balance,” Zelda says. “When it is complete, all the parts reunited, the possessor may have whatever they wish granted.”

Ganondorf shakes his head. “Impossible. I am no Hylian.”

“But you hold the Triforce of Power, as I hold that of Wisdom and Link that of Courage.” Zelda will have no argument now. How the thief took it may forever remain a mystery, but it is here. “We hold in our hands—quite literally—the power to bring eternal peace to Hyrule.”

Link smiles broadly. “And we will,” he says, in his quiet voice. “I was wrong, Zelda. It was not idiocy, but wisdom to bring him here.”

Zelda looks to Ganondorf. “Will you join us?” she asks.

He hesitates only a moment. “I will,” he says.

 

_Two_

 

Zelda’s prayers go unanswered.

Link reaches the top of the tower virtually unscathed. He emerges from the doorway, shouting her name. Instantly, Ganon traps him in a cocoon of dark power. Link struggles, but to no avail. And Zelda can only watch, helpless, as Ganon tears the Triforce of Courage from Link with a terrible spell.

“You do not have the virtues in balance,” Zelda says, a final weak protest.

“Ah, but I do,” Ganon says. “I have striven against impossible odds with no hope of success, which is courage, and you yourself have taught me the meaning of far-sighted wisdom. There is nothing which says that the Triforce must be held by one with a benevolent heart, only that they must have virtues in balance. Selflessness was never a virtue to the goddesses.”

And she can only watch as the Triforce assembles itself—and is taken by the king of evil to grant his greatest desires.

 

_Three_

 

They are alone when it happens, which Zelda possibly should have expected. And it is a casual thing, no grand gestures or sounding trumpets. In the library, as Zelda squints at a book, she finds her hand taken and a question asked. Heart in her throat, Zelda says yes.

When he kisses her, it sets her every part of her aflame. And she knows in her mind that this match is a political maneuver, a way to create another bargaining chip to convince Hyrule to lend further aid to the Gerudo. But her heart says that there is another motive, something deeper and greater, something betrayed by the light in Ganondorf’s eyes when he looks upon her.

The whole of Hyrule rejoices, preparing for the celebrations. Zelda’s father embraces her—and embraces his future son-in-law. Gerudo come from the deserts, celebrating their king and brother; the Rito, the Zora, and the Goron send envoys and emissaries to witness the moment.

In a rare moment alone, Zelda looks up at Ganondorf and asks, “What more could you possibly want after all of this?”

“There are many things, Zelda,” he says. He looks away, out the window by which they sit. “I have never been satisfied.”

Somehow, Zelda knows what he means without asking, without him speaking plain. It is the fact that he does not ask that convinces her that the time is right. Slowly, she rises to her feet. “If there has ever been a man with all the virtues balanced in his heart, then it is you.”

For a moment, Ganondorf looks at her in surprise. “You think highly of me.”

“I would not marry you if I did not,” Zelda says quietly. Her heart pounds. “I think so highly of you that I believe it is time you see the single greatest treasure of Hyrule.”

 

_One_

 

Ganondorf the thief and Zelda the princess are wed in a simple ceremony. He refuses all titles and lands, adding yet another scandal to their long list. Zelda does not care one whit. She is happy, and he is happy, and Link is happy—and that is what matters to her. They each wear the crest of the Triforce now, and when they stand united there is nothing that can compete with them.

It is not long before Zelda is crowned Queen Regnant of Hyrule. At her coronation, Link stands at her left hand as her shield; Ganondorf at her right as her sword. Courage, wisdom, and power. None of them are in balance alone: Zelda can be a true coward, and hates conflict. Ganondorf does not think things through before he acts. Link would never draw his sword or claim his authority if someone else did not make him. Together, they are better.

“There’s something strange,” Zelda says thoughtfully one evening when she has spent half the day in the library. She undoes her braided hair, watching Ganondorf in the mirror.

He is reclined on their bed, watching her in return. “What’s strange?”

“In the Hyrule Historia, there are…allusions to previous possessors of the Triforce of Power,” she says, dropping a jeweled pin onto the vanity. “All say that the possessor was driven to take the Triforce by pure greed and evil. You…are not evil.”

“I am greedy, though,” Ganondorf says with a smirk.

As an afterthought, Zelda picks up the pin and throws it over her shoulder at him, judging the distance in the mirror. She smiles as he ducks, rising to her feet and crossing the room. “But you do not seek for evil, selfish ends.”

“I don’t need them,” he says as she falls beside him. “I have all that could be desired by any man.”

Zelda looks up at him and smiles, a great feeling of relief washing through her, as though a great calamity has been averted. As if they may have a happy ending, without trouble and danger to reach it. She is content.

This is how their story ends.

 

_Two_

 

The calamity spreads across the land like a rising tide. Zelda watches the darkness from numb eyes, knowing that she has utterly failed. Link is dead, and she has given up entirely.

Over the gates of the castle hangs a body, shattered and broken by Ganon’s hands, the broken pieces of the Master Sword driven through the corpse. Zelda counts herself lucky that she does not have to look upon it, for the window of her opulent prison faces the other direction.

Monsters reign unchallenged. The Blood Moon rises every night, and with the unceasing onslaught any pockets of resistance are quickly destroyed. A few brave Gorons keep a stronghold on Death Mountain filled with refugees and survivors; Zelda knows that the only reason they are not yet dead is that Ganon finds them amusing. The Great Deku Tree remains, protecting the forest and those few who sought refuge in its shade, but every day more trees fall, and every day the darkness closes in. It is only a matter of time before no bastion of good remains.

“No one can mount a true rebellion without you, my Zelda,” Ganon says as they stand upon the battlements of the castle one day.

It’s strange to see the countryside like this. There is no physical darkness, no rot that eats away at the plants—not yet, at least. The fields and trees are as green as ever, the water a beautiful clear blue. It makes a mockery of what had been Hyrule, once, and Zelda hates it. She wishes it would all burn. “They will,” she says, summoning all her tranquility. “You know that evil cannot hold for long. It never has.”

“Perhaps,” Ganon says. He watches the landscape as she does and Zelda wonders what he sees through his madness. “But I will be here long enough. This world is mine. Mine at last.”

Zelda does not say a word. It would be a lie, to deny him, and he likes it too much when she lies to give him the pleasure of hearing her do it once again.

And then Ganon turns to her with a deceptively kind smile. “And you, also, are mine.”

She is. There are no more chains, nothing more to hold her by force. She wears her crown again, as Queen of Hyrule—the woman who is nothing more than Ganon’s toy.

This is how her story ends.

 

_Three_

It all goes wrong.

As they stand in the chamber of the Triforce, watching it slowly revolve over the ancient ring of stones which holds it suspended by magic, there is a flash of something evil in Ganondorf’s eyes. He pushes Zelda roughly away and strides to the edge of the ring of stones.

“What are you doing?” Zelda demands.

“Taking what is mine!” he replies.

Zelda recovers herself and moves to chase him, but the doors slam open behind them. “He cannot touch the Triforce!” Link shouts.

Before he can reach Ganondorf, Zelda throws out an arm. “No!” she cries. Link has his sword drawn and the King has no weapon at all. She turns to Ganondorf. “I thought you had what you wanted!”

“I will never be satisfied, Princess,” he says, staring at the great golden sigil as it spins.

“You can have all you desire if you wed me!” Zelda says, a desperate bid to make him listen to her again. Where is the power that her words held over him?

“You cannot promise that!” he says, looking down on her with dark eyes. Something is wrong—something is so horribly wrong that it makes Zelda sick to see it. Worse than anything else, it is a familiar kind of wrongness. _She has been here before_.

“Zelda! Get out of the way!” Link says. Her protector. Her friend. She should listen to him, but—

She looks up at Ganondorf. “You cannot take the Triforce! No one can! It will shatter!”

Ganondorf snarls and the sudden horrible expression is enough to make Zelda take a step back. “I do not care! Hyrule has taken from us long enough, and I will see the end of that!” He reaches out to touch the Triforce.

“Wait!” Zelda all but screams.

To her shock, he stops and looks at her.

“What will happen if you touch that—if you give in to the temptation—you know that you will be a monster! It is no life for a man like you.”

“No,” Ganondorf agrees, “it is not. But life as a tame pet for a princess is not a life for me, either.”

 _She has been here before_. The words come unbidden: “I would not make you tame,” she says, “and I could never even try. Please. I will help you achieve all you desire, you know that I will.” Slowly, Zelda reaches out with one shaking hand, pleading, offering.

They have been here before, all three of them. Link, the hero; Zelda, the princess; Ganondorf, the enemy. But it’s all wrong, because Zelda cannot shake the idea that today Link is the enemy and Ganondorf the hero.

And Ganondorf stands caught between the golden Triforce and Zelda’s hand. Madness and reason war in his eyes. If he touches the Triforce, it will shatter, and they will all be profoundly and forever changed. If he takes her hand, then she can pull him away and prevent this great calamity. The moment stretches on and on, and none of them move.

Zelda does not know how the story will end.


End file.
